Sign of the (Lap) Times: Glen Helen

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The 2008 AMA Toyota Motocross Championship kicked off the season right where it left off last September at San Bernardino’s Glen Helen Raceway. The Jody Weisel-designed track again presented riders with one of the gnarliest courses on the circuit, with massive uphills, treacherous downhills, off-cambers, deep sand, gut-wrenching ruts, whoops, hardpack and very big jumps. But enough about the track; we’re here to analyze the lap times in Sign of the (Lap) Times, presented by RXR Protect.

Lites

In all four motos on Sunday, the moto winner turned out to have the fastest time of the race, and that kicked off with Boost Mobile/Yamaha of Troy’s Jason Lawrence logging a 2:43.412 in Moto 1 on his way to his first career moto win. But the next four riders weren’t too far off his pace. In fact, the top five lap times in this first moto were all separated by a mere .33 seconds! That’s close!

J Law laid down the law in the first moto

In Moto 2 it was the defending champion, Ryan Villopoto, logging the fastest time in the moto (2:42.684), which was faster than that of J-Law’s first moto best lap. Second fastest in both motos was eventual winner Austin Stroupe on his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki. Check out the lap times of the top 20 finishers below:

Biggest surprise: Scanning the top 10 finishers, the name that really sticks out is Division 7/Star Racing’s Matt Lemoine. The Texas-born rider has been pretty quiet so far in 2008, as injuries and bad luck hampered his supercross season, where his best finish was a 10th in Houston. But he came out blazing at Glen Helen, going 6-9 for seventh overall.

AMA Motocross
As you already know, it was all James Stewart in the 450 class at Glen Helen. Not only did he log a convincing 1-1 tally, Stewart also had the fastest lap times in the class both times out aboard his Monster Energy Kawasaki. The closest rider to him was Rockstar/Makita Suzuki’s Mike Alessi, who finished 2-2 in his return to AMA Pro Racing. Alessi’s lap times weren’t that far off of Stewart, and in the second moto Alessi’s fastest lap was almost three full seconds faster than third place finisher Davi Millsaps. Check out the top 20 below:

Biggest surprise: Again, scanning down through the top 10, the name that jumps out is Sean Hamblin. Or does it? This seems so similar to 2002, when Hamblin came out on a privateer Suzuki and ran in the top 10, gaining the attention of Roger DeCoster and Team Suzuki. Hamblin surely got some looks on Sunday, and stay tuned to Racer X Online later this week for an interview with the Yamaha privateer.